Oops! Lounging in Italy meant that I forgot to say that the second reading of the Bill in the Lords has been put back to September 13th after the recess. This is a general discussion session and precedes the more detailed Lords’ Committee Stage.

An interesting day today at the annual DWP Convention. Unusually hesitant presentations by officials and ministers. Lord Freud made several errors in his address and the general lack of certainty in the details of the new scheme, even after the Bill has left the commons, is still surprising. I’ve been working on modelling the transition […]

The main story in today’s Observer is a leaked letter from DCLG about the effects of the proposed capping. You can read it at Tories admit benefit cuts risk 40,000 homeless families. The likely effects aren’t new, many organisations and individuals have pointed out the dangers before, and even the government have accepted them publicly. […]

Still no decision but I gather that the options are narrowed to Option A or Option B. These are generally seen as being the ‘least bad’ of the proposals but will still mean losses for existing childcare help recipients. They also mean that Universal Credit making everyone ‘better-off in work’ may not happen for a […]